HUNT FOR PAIN POINTS To identify opportunities for redesign, chase “pain points,” thorny problems plaguing a set of people. Carmen, a forty-five-year-old business analyst, worked for a New Jersey–based life insurance company.20 She processed payroll for the company’s insurance agents scattered across the country. For years, she helped the agents handle so-called third-party sick pay (don’t ask) as they stumbled through the bewildering throng of steps and tax filing implications. Carmen estimated that she received, on average, a phone call each day from an agent irate over the labyrinth of
...more
